Archive | September 2017
HAMAS BOASTS ARE PROOF OF IRANIAN VIOLATIONS!
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US Ambassador to the United Nations – Nikki Haley
. US Ambassador to the UN says Hamas statements of receiving weapons from Iran show Iran is violating UN resolutions banning weapons exports.
The United States last week described remarks by a Hamas leader boasting of strong military ties with Iran as a “stunning admission” that showed Tehran was violating a UN ban on arms exports.
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Hamas leader Yahya al-Sinwar, who heads the Islamist terrorist movement in Gaza, told reporters on Monday that Iran was the “biggest supporter” of Hamas’s military wing, the Ezzedine al-Qassam Brigades.
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“The Iranian military support to Hamas and al-Qassam is strategic,” said Sinwar, adding that ties with Iran had “become fantastic and returned to its former era.”
In a statement, the US mission to the United Nations recalled that Iran is barred from exporting weapons under a key UN resolution that endorsed the 2015 nuclear deal with world powers.
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“Once again, Iran is showing its true colors,” said US Ambassador Nikki Haley.
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Iran must abide by UN resolutions or decide “whether it wants to be the leader of a jihadist terrorist movement,” she added.
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“It’s long past time for the international community to hold Iran to the same standard that all countries who actually value peace and security are held to.”
A strong supporter of Israel, Haley has repeatedly criticized Iran at the United Nations and cast doubt over its commitment to the nuclear deal.
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The United States considers Hamas, which has fought three wars with Israel since 2008, a terrorist organization.
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Hamas has run Gaza since 2007 and received Iranian financial and military support for years, but the movement had distanced itself from Iran over Tehran’s strong backing of President Bashar al-Assad in Syria.
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Sinwar, however, has sought to rebuild relations, sending a high-level delegation to meet Iranian officials.
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TWO KINDS OF HATE
by chief Rabbi Lord Sacks
. It is by any standard a strange, almost incomprehensible law. Here it is in the form it appears in this week’s parsha:
. Remember what the Amalekites did to you along the way when you came out of Egypt. When you were weary and worn out, they met you on your journey and attacked all who were lagging behind; they had no fear of God. When the Lord your God gives you rest from all the enemies around you in the land He is giving you to possess as an inheritance, you shall blot out the name of Amalek from under the heaven. Do not forget. (Deut. 25:17-19)
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The Israelites had two enemies in the days of Moses: the Egyptians and the Amalekites. The Egyptians enslaved the Israelites. They turned them into a forced labor colony. They oppressed them. Pharaoh commanded them to drown every male Israelite child. It was attempted genocide. Yet about them, Moses commands: .
Do not despise an Egyptian, because you were strangers in his land. (Deut. 23:8)
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The Amalekites did no more than attack the Israelites once, an attack that they successfully repelled (Ex. 17:13). Yet Moses commands, “Remember.” “Do not forget.” “Blot out the name.” In Exodus the Torah says that “God shall be at war with Amalek for all generations” (Ex. 17:16). Why the difference? Why did Moses tell the Israelites, in effect, to forgive the Egyptians but not the Amalekites?
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The answer is to be found as a corollary of teaching in the Mishna, Avot (5:19):
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Whenever love depends on a cause and the cause passes away, then the love passes away too. But if love does not depend on a cause then the love will never pass away. What is an example of the love which depended upon a cause? That of Amnon for Tamar. And what is an example of the love which did not depend on a cause? That of David and Jonathan.
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When love is conditional, it lasts as long as the condition lasts but no longer. Amnon loved, or rather lusted, for Tamar because she was forbidden to him. She was his half-sister. Once he had had his way with her, “Then Amnon hated her with intense hatred. In fact, he hated her more than he had loved her.” (2 Sam. 13:15). But when love is unconditional and irrational, it never ceases. In the words of Dylan Thomas: “Though lovers be lost, love shall not, and death shall have no dominion.”
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The same applies to hate. When hate is rational, based on some fear or disapproval that – justified or not – has some logic to it, then it can be reasoned with and brought to an end. But unconditional, irrational hatred cannot be reasoned with. There is nothing one can do to address it and end it. It persists.
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That was the difference between the Amalekites and the Egyptians. The Egyptians’ hatred and fear of the Israelites was not irrational. Pharaoh said to his people:
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‘The Israelites are becoming too numerous and strong for us. We must deal wisely with them. Otherwise, they may increase so much, that if there is war, they will join our enemies and fight against us, driving [us] from the land.’ (Ex. 1:9-10)
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The Egyptians feared the Israelites because they were numerous. They constituted a potential threat to the native population. Historians tell us that this was not groundless. Egypt had already suffered from one invasion of outsiders, the Hyksos, an Asiatic people with Canaanite names and beliefs, who took over the Nile Delta during the Second Intermediate Period of the Egypt of the Pharaohs. Eventually they were expelled from Egypt and all traces of their occupation were erased. But the memory persisted. It was not irrational for the Egyptians to fear that the Hebrews were another such population. They feared the Israelites because they were strong.
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(Note that there is a difference between “rational” and “justified”. The Egyptians’ fear was in this case certainly unjustified. The Israelites did not want to take over Egypt. To the contrary, they would have preferred to leave. Not every rational emotion is justified. It is not irrational to feel fear of flying after the report of a major air disaster, despite the fact that statistically it is more dangerous to drive a car than to be a passenger in a plane. The point is simply that rational but unjustified emotion can, in principle, be cured through reasoning.)
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Precisely the opposite was true of the Amalekites. They attacked the Israelites when they were “weary and weak”. They focused their assault on those who were “lagging behind.” Those who are weak and lagging behind pose no danger. This was irrational, groundless hate.
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With rational hate it is possible to reason. Besides, there was no reason for the Egyptians to fear the Israelites any more. They had left. They were no longer a threat. But with irrational hate it is impossible to reason. It has no cause, no logic. Therefore it may never go away. Irrational hate is as durable and persistent as irrational love. The hatred symbolized by Amalek lasts “for all generations.” All one can do is to remember and not forget, to be constantly vigilant, and to fight it whenever and wherever it appears.
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There is such a thing as rational xenophobia: fear and hate of the foreigner, the stranger, the one not like us. In the hunter-gatherer stage of humanity, it was vital to distinguish between members of your tribe and those of another tribe. There was competition for food and territory. It was not an age of liberalism and tolerance. The other tribe was likely to kill you or oust you, given the chance.
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The ancient Greeks were xenophobic, regarding all non-Greeks as barbarians. So still are many native populations. Even people as tolerant as the British and Americans were historically distrustful of immigrants, be they Jews, Irish, Italian or Puerto Rican – and for some this remains the case today. What happens, though, is that within two or three generations the newcomers acculturate and integrate. They are seen as contributing to the national economy and adding richness and variety to its culture. When an emotion like fear of immigrants is rational but unjustified, eventually it declines and disappears.
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Anti-Semitism is different from xenophobia. It is the paradigm case of irrational hatred. In the Middle Ages Jews were accused of poisoning wells, spreading the plague, and in one of the most absurd claims ever – the Blood Libel – they were suspected of killing Christian children to use their blood to make matzot for Pesach. This was self-evidently impossible, but that did not stop people believing it.
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The European Enlightenment, with its worship of science and reason, was expected to end all such hatred. Instead it gave rise to a new version of it, racial anti-Semitism. In the nineteenth century Jews were hated because they were rich and because they were poor; because they were capitalists and because they were communists; because they were exclusive and kept to themselves and because they infiltrated everywhere; because they were believers in an ancient, superstitious faith and because they were rootless cosmopolitans who believed nothing.
Anti-Semitism was the supreme irrationality of the age of reason.
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It gave rise to a new myth, The Protocols of the Elders of Zion, a literary forgery produced by members of the Czarist Russia secret police toward the end of the nineteenth century. It held that Jews had power over the whole of Europe – this at the time of the Russian pogroms of 1881 and the anti-Semitic May Laws of 1882, which sent some three million Jews, powerless and impoverished, into flight from Russia to the West.
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The situation in which Jews found themselves at the end of what was supposed to be the century of Enlightenment and emancipation was stated eloquently by Theodor Herzl, in 1897:
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We have sincerely tried everywhere to merge with the national communities in which we live, seeking only to preserve the faith of our fathers. It is not permitted us. In vain are we loyal patriots, sometimes superloyal; in vain do we make the same sacrifices of life and property as our fellow citizens; in vain do we strive to enhance the fame of our native lands in the arts and sciences, or her wealth by trade and commerce.
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In our native lands where we have lived for centuries we are still decried as aliens, often by men whose ancestors had not yet come at a time when Jewish sighs had long been heard in the country . . . If we were left in peace, but I think we shall not be left in peace.
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This was deeply shocking to Herzl. No less shocking has been the return of Anti-Semitism in parts of the world today, particularly the Middle East and even Europe, within living memory of the Holocaust. Yet the Torah intimates why. Irrational hate does not die.
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Not all hostility to Jews, or to Israel as a Jewish state, is irrational, and where it is not, it can be reasoned with. But some of it is irrational. Some of it, even today, is a repeat of the myths of the past, from the Blood Libel to the Protocols. All we can do is remember and not forget, confront it and defend ourselves against it.
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Amalek does not die. But neither does the Jewish people. Attacked so many times over the centuries, it still lives, giving testimony to the victory of the God of love over the myths and madness of hate.
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Danger Signs For Israel Coming From Parts Of Trump Administration
By Ryan Mauro/Clarion Project
Israel and its supporters in the West are seeing danger signs coming from parts of the Trump Administration. Since taking office, the camp that views Israel as a liability and “root cause” of Islamic extremism has been gaining ground.
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That camp is at odds with those who view the Islamist ideology as the root cause and believes it must be defeated for there to be peace in the Middle East.
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State Dept. Report Blames Israel, Exonerates Palestinian Authority
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The biggest danger sign for America’s best ally in the Middle East came with the recent release of the State Department’s annual Country Reports on Terrorism. It blamed Israel for sparking terrorism while applauding the Palestinian Authority’s counter-extremism efforts.
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The report frames Palestinian terrorism as a response to Israeli misconduct, with no attribution to an Islamist ideology or culture with a genocidal desire to wipe Israel off the map. Palestinian terrorism is essentially presented as a form of “resistance” motivated by legitimate grievances against Israeli actions. In other words, the terrorists are misguided freedom fighters.
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The identified “continued drivers of violence” are listed as a “lack of hope in achieving Palestinian statehood, Israeli settlement construction in the West Bank, settler violence against Palestinians in the West Bank, the perception that the Israeli government was changing the status quo on the Haram Al Sharif/Temple Mount, and IDF tactics that the Palestinians considered overly aggressive.”
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The treatment of the Palestinian Authority, on the other hand, was mostly positive. The report lauded its efforts in combating extremism and claimed that it had minimized the incitement of violence by Palestinian Authority officials and institutions. It went so far as to say that incitement is now “rare” and “the leadership does not generally tolerate it.”
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The State Department report undermines President Trump’s position on Israel.
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Trump yelled at Palestinian President Abbas for lying to him about the indoctrination of Palestinian children. Shortly before that meeting, Abbas had publicly stood side-by-side in Washington D.C. with Trump. Standing together, Trump said he genuinely believed Abbas was committed to peace. Abbas asserted that Palestinian children are being raised in a “culture of peace.”
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It is very unsettling that Trump fell for Abbas’ lies at all and the White House permitted Abbas to deceive the world audience watching their event. However, Trump learned the truth, publicly changed his tune, and confronted Abbas face-to-face.
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By publishing this report, the State Department is closer to Abbas’ position than its own Commander-in-Chief.
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The Conservative Review compared the State Department’s report to the one published under the Obama Administration with Secretary of State John Kerry. It found the report by Tillerson’s State Department is even more hostile to Israel than the one issued under Kerry, who furiously blasted Israel on his way out of office.
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In fact, the State Department report spends more time assigning blame for terrorism to Israel than to Qatar, a massive sponsor of terrorism and extremism. One cannot help but wonder if Tillerson’s pro-Qatar position and business ties to the Qatari regime had something to do with it.
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The report prompted one pro-Israel organization to call for the resignation of Secretary Tillerson. Rep. Pete Roskam (R-IL) wrote a letter to Tillerson pointing out the report’s errors and omissions and asking for changes.
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As of now, Tillerson has not publicly responded. He has not apologized. He has not revised the report. This is a major report that should have had his attention before publication and, if it didn’t, it should now. Blaming holdovers from the previous administration is no excuse.
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Tillerson is also said to be weighing a plan to pressure Israel to return tens of millions of dollars in military aid allocated by Congress for the Jewish state, claiming the funds violate an agreement signed during the Obama administration.
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Increasing Taxpayer Money to the Palestinian Authority
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Another danger sign is how the State Department is hoping to spend its money as it faces major budget reductions. While the State Department plans a 28% cut in foreign aid to places around the world, State is planning to increase its aid to the Palestinian Authority.
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State Department documents leaked to the media in April show it plans a 4.6% increase to the West Bank run by the terrorism-inciting Palestinian Authority and the Gaza Strip run by Hamas. A total of $215 million in aid is allotted for 2018.
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The Palestinian Authority uses half of the foreign aid it receives to sponsor terrorism. It is increasing its compensation for terrorists in Israeli prisons by 13% and its financial aid to families of killed terrorists by 4%. The total amount of these two allotments is $344 million.
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It remains to be seen what will actually happen with the State Department’s budget. Republican and Democratic Senators described the proposed budget as “dead on arrival.”
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Changing Positions
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In February, President Trump called on Israel to “hold back on settlements for a little bit.” In an interview with an Israeli newspaper, Trump said that Israeli settlement construction is “[not] a good thing for peace.”
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Whatever you think of the settlements, the issue here is that Trump correlated the prospects for peace with Israel ending settlement construction. But as Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu responded, settlements are “not the core of the conflict, nor does it drive the conflict.”
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Trump’s statement indicated that the camp that sees Israel as part of the “root cause” of terrorism was advancing almost immediately after he took the oath of office. On the positive side, Trump’s speech in Saudi Arabia in May did not link the problem to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, a powerful omission that was overlooked by most observers.
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On June 1, the Trump Administration backtracked on his vow to move the U.S. embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, at least for the time being. No firm commitment to moving the embassy was made, despite Trump’s campaign promise.
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Secretary Tillerson’s influence is widely seen as being responsible for the flip-flop. In May, Tillerson set off alarm bells for friends of Israel by refusing to commit to fulfilling Trump’s campaign pledge. He said that Trump’s promise has to be weighed against the considerations of the parties involved in the peace process.
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In other words, Tillerson would rather upset Trump’s voters who he made the promise to than upset Israel’s enemies, who are also America’s enemies.
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Tillerson makes it sound as if an Arab government that genuinely gave up its genocidal ambitions would resurrect its genocidal ambitions because of where an American diplomatic facility is positioned. If that’s all it takes to trigger an Arab regime into a genocidal frenzy, then that regime was never truly interested in peace in the first place.
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State Department Appointments
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There are also danger signs in the staffing of the State Department.
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In June, Tillerson appointed Yael Lempert as the Acting Deputy Assistant Secretary for Egypt and the Maghreb. According to her bio, she was previously in the Obama Administration’s National Security Council from 2014 to May 2017, serving as the Senior Director for the Levant, Israel and Egypt and a Special Assistant to President Obama.
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This means that Tillerson’s high-level appointee served as an official involved in the tension between the U.S. and Israel that reached its peak as the Obama Administration came to an end. She also was centrally involved in the Obama Administration’s policy towards Egypt that favored the Muslim Brotherhood.
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One report quoted a former Clinton official as saying:
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“[Lempert] is considered one of the harshest critics of Israel on the foreign policy far left. From her position on the Obama NSC, she helped manufacture crisis after crisis in a relentless effort to portray Israel negatively and diminish the breadth and depth of our alliance. Most Democrats in town know better than to let her manage Middle East affairs. It looks like the Trump administration has no idea who she is or how hostile she is to the U.S.-Israel relationship.”
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In December 2014, when Lempert was on the Obama Administration’s National Security Council, she met with anti-Israel activist Michael Sfard. He has been paid by the Palestinian Authority to act as an expert witness in terrorism trials in its defense. He also works in an organization that seeks to put Israeli officials and soldiers on trial for war crimes.
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Under Trump, Lempert was involved in putting pressure on Israel to suspend its settlement construction.
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Another State Department official to watch is Michael Ratney, who was Secretary of State John Kerry’s consul to Jerusalem. In March, Jordan Schachtel broke the story that Tillerson appeared to have chosen Ratney to oversee the Israeli-Palestinian portfolio.
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Ratney is currently the Special Envoy for Syria, so his reassignment either hasn’t happened yet or the administration has changed its mind. He is, however, currently involved in talks with Israel regarding Syria for the Trump Administration.
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National Security Council Appointments
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National Security Adviser General H.R. McMaster was asked twice whether the Western Wall is part of Israel and he refused to answer. He replied, “That’s a policy decision.”
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The peculiar non-answer appears significant in light of how the National Security Council is being staffed as McMaster shapes the office to his liking.
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Kris Bauman was chosen in May as the top adviser on Israel for the National Security Council. Tellingly, the person he was replacing was the aforementioned Yael Lempert.
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Daniel Greenfield reviewed Bauman’s 2009 dissertation and found highly disturbing content.
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He blamed Israel and the West for failing to see “Hamas’s signals of willingness to moderate” and turning Gaza “into an open-air prison” instead of engaging Hamas. He advocated a policy that includes “Hamas in a solution,” dismissing Hamas’ oft-stated pledge to destroy Israel and kill Jews until the end of time.
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Bauman cites The Israel Lobby, a book that purports to disclose how Israel secretly manipulates the U.S. institutions of power from behind-the-scenes. He says the Israel Lobby “is a force that must be reckoned with, but it is a force that can be reckoned with.”
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Bauman clearly depicts Israel as the aggressor and, as Greenfield points out, equates Jewish settlers in the West Bank with Palestinian terrorists.
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“It is true that one could make an analogous argument regarding Palestinian terrorism, but there is one major difference between the two. Israeli government control over settlement expansion is far greater than Palestinian Authority control over terrorism,” Bauman writes.
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He blames the peace process for failing on Israel and the West because each offer “overwhelmingly favored Israeli interests.” Prime Minister Netanyahu is blamed for “inciting Palestinian violence” and deliberately undermining the prospects for peace.
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A consistent theme appears in Bauman’s thesis: Israel is the instigator of terrorism. To defeat terrorism, stop Israel. And now he is in a strong position in the National Security Council to try to make that happen.
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Early Concern Over Secretary of Defense Mattis
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President Trump’s selection of General James Mattis as secretary of defense was widely celebrated, particularly among those who appreciated his tough stands on Islamism, the Muslim Brotherhood and Iran. However, comments he made regarding Israel in 2013 received renewed attention.
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Mattis seemed to express the opinion that U.S. support of Israel undermines the American military and national security.
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“I paid a military security price every day as a commander of CENTCOM because the Americans were seen as biased in support of Israel, and that moderates all the moderate Arabs who want to be with us because they can’t come out publicly in support of people who don’t show respect for the Arab Palestinians,” he said.
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Mattis also seemed to believe that Israeli settlement construction was a primary cause of the conflict with the Palestinians. He warned that Israel was headed towards “apatheid” if it isn’t stopped.
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“If I’m Jerusalem and I put 500 Jewish settlers out here to the east and there’s 10,000 Arab settlers in here, if we draw the border to include them, either it ceases to be a Jewish state or you say the Arabs don’t get to vote — apartheid…That didn’t work too well the last time I saw that practiced in a country,” he said.
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The good news is that Mattis has repeatedly expressed his disdain for the Iranian regime and is eager to give them some payback for killing American soldiers for decades. His comments on the Muslim Brotherhood and Political Islam show that he understands the ideological foundation of the threat.
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Conclusion
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Every administration struggles with the contentious debate over whether Israel is a liability that generates Islamic extremism or whether Islamic extremism is what generates and sustains the conflicts that Israel is in. And for some, the truth is somewhere in between.
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We are seeing this debate play out inside the Trump Administration. And the first camp is gaining ground.
Growing Acceptance Of Microchip Implants
By PNW Staff
In Sweden, people are abandoning the use of paper money for an increasing number of everyday transactions.
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In fact, the amount of hard cash in circulation has decreased by 40 percent in the last 7 years. Sweden is beginning to look at doing away with physical money in favor of a completely digital currency which may include a microchip under the skin.
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Commuters in Sweden are an example of trading cash for convenience as several hundred have already been chipped to be able to use the SJ Rail transit system.
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The train conductor can then simply read the chip with a smartphone to confirm the passenger has paid for their journey. Another 3,000 have been chipped so that they can have easy access to secure areas of buildings.
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Worldwide it is estimated that 20,000 people already have them, using the small devices to swipe in and out of the office, and even pay for food.
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Wisconsin company, Three Square Market received lots of press earlier this year when it announced it would provide optional chipping of it’s employees.
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“It’s the next thing that’s inevitably going to happen, and we want to be a part of it,” Three Square Market Chief Executive Officer Todd Westby said.
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So, according to Westby, microchipping employees is “the next thing that is inevitably going to happen.”
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Three Square Market designs software for break rooms that are commonly seen in office places. In other words, the markets where you get your food and check out yourself.
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“We’ll hit pay with a credit card, and it’s asking to swipe my proximity payment now. I’ll hold my hand up, just like my cell phone, and it’ll pay for my product,” Westby said.
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The tiny chip, which uses RFID technology or Radio-Frequency Identification, can be implanted between the thumb and forefinger “within seconds,” according to a statement from Three Square Market.
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The report noted that the business is not requiring its employees to get the chip and that it’s optional (note how chip implants for pets have gone from optional to mandatory in some locations). So far 50 people are believed to have opted in to take the plunge and get the microchip implanted.
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A NBC News report last year asserted the microchipping of children will happen “sooner rather than later” due to parental safety concerns and that Americans will eventually accept the process as something just as normal as the barcode.
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“It’s not a matter of if it will happen, but when,” electronics expert Stuart Lipoff told the network.
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But the technology raises security and privacy issues, as the data generated could be used to track people without their consent.
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It also offers a spiritual dilemma for those who believe that these implants could be the forerunner to the Bible’s “mark of the beast.” The passage in the Bible that talks about the mark of the beast is found in Revelation 13:17:
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“And the second beast required all people small and great, rich and poor, free and slave, to receive a mark on their right hand or on their forehead, so that no one could buy or sell unless he had the mark — the name of the beast or the number of its name. Here is a call for wisdom: Let the one who has insight calculate the number of the beast, for it is the number of a man, and that number is six hundred sixty-six”.
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Christians have long debated about the meaning of the “mark of the beast” however our generation appears to be the first that now has the technology to fulfill this prophecy.
ARABS MARGINALIZE THE PALESTINIAN ISSUE
By retired Ambassador Yoram Ettinger
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The Al-Aqsa Mosque controversy has exposed, once again, the non-centrality of the Palestinian issue in the overall Arab order of priorities.
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Contrary to Western media headlines, Arab policy-makers and the Arab Street are not focused on Palestinian rights and Al Aqsa, but on their own chaotic, raging local and regional challenges, which are not related to the Palestinian issue.
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For example, while the top Palestinian religious leader, Mufti Muhammad Hussein, castigates Arab leaders for their inaction on behalf of the Al Aqsa Mosque, Egyptian President General Sisi, and the Egyptian street, are preoccupied with traumatizing economic and social decay and challenges; the dwindling level of tourism, which is a main source of national income; the lethal, domestic threat of Muslim Brotherhood terrorism; the Libyan chaos and its effective spillover into Egypt; the entrenchment of Islamic terrorism in the Sinai Peninsula, across the Gulf of Suez; the Gaza-based terrorism; the threatening collaboration of Turkey-Qatar-Iran and Turkey’s support of Hamas; the potentially-explosive border with Sudan; etc.
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General Sisi invests much more time in geo-strategic coordination with Jordan, Saudi Arabia, other Arab Gulf States, the US and Israel – which are perceived as critical allies in combatting terrorism – than with the Palestinian Authority, which is perceived as a destabilizing entity.
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According to the July 20, 2017 issue of the London-based Middle East Monitor, “Al Aqsa has been abandoned by those who profess the leadership of the Muslim World…. [Egypt’s and Saudi Arabia’s] cold indifference…is unworthy of institutions that profess to be the preeminent leaders of Muslims around the world…. The religious institutions in Makkah, Madinah and Cairo have gone absent without leave despite the dangerous situation at the Noble Sanctuary in occupied Jerusalem…. Both countries are spearheading a regional drive for full normalization of relations with Israel. Their reasoning is that friendship with Israel is the best guarantee of US support for themselves…”
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The London-based Palestinian newspaper, Al-Quds Al-Arabi, published a cartoon, depicting the Arab World as an ostrich burying its head in the sand, while the Al Aqsa Mosque bleeds.
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Since 1948, and in defiance of Western foreign policy, academia and media establishments, the Arab/Islamic agenda has transcended the Palestinian issue.
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While showering the Palestinian issue with substantial talk, the Arab/Islamic walk has mostly been directed at other issues: the 1,400-year-old regional, intra-Arab/Islamic unpredictability, fragmentation, instability and intolerant violence; the Islamic Sunni terrorist machete at the throat of all pro-US Arab regimes; the clear and present danger, posed by Iran’s Ayatollahs, to the same regimes; the destructive role played by Qatar in the context of – and in assistance to – the Ayatollahs; the lethal, regional ripple effects of the disintegration of Iraq, Syria and Libya; the inherent, tectonic (disintegration) potential in every Arab regime; the impact of the global energy revolution on the potency of the Arab oil producing regimes; and the enhanced role of Israel in the battle against the aforementioned threats.
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The dramatic gap between the Arab walk and talk on behalf of Palestinians was particularly noticeable during the Israel-Palestinian wars of 1982 (in Lebanon), 1987-1991 (the 1st Intifada), 2000-2003 (2nd Intifada) and the Israel-Hamas wars of 2009, 2012 and 2014.
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Arabs have never shed blood – nor have Arabs dedicated their economic power – on behalf of Palestinians.
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Moreover, current Iraqi policy-makers and the Iraqi Street are well-aware of the intense Palestinian collaboration with the repressive regime of Saddam Hussein, which caused the Palestinian flight from Iraq following the fall of Saddam. The Syrian Street has not taken kindly to the Palestinian support of the Assad regime, which has produced an expanding Palestinian emigration from Syria since the eruption of the civil war in 2011.
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Furthermore, most Arab policy-makers consider the well-documented subversive, terroristic Palestinian track record – against fellow Arabs – to be a potential threat to domestic and regional stability. The Arab aim has been to reduce the number of stormy spots in the Middle East, realizing that each eruption of violence resembles a rock thrown into a pool, generating ripple effects throughout the pool, as has been documented by the Arab Tsunami, which is simmering in every Arab country. Thus, violence west of the Jordan River could have an infectious impact east of the river, posing a deadly threat to the pro-US Hashemite regime, which could spread southward to Saudi Arabia and other pro-US Arab Gulf states.
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In 1948-49 – as was the case in succeeding Arab-Israeli wars – Arab countries did not fight Israel on behalf of Palestinians. Therefore, Syria, Jordan, Iraq and Egypt did not share the spoils of the 1948-49 war with Palestinians, prohibiting Palestinian activities in Judea and Samaria (the West Bank) and Gaza. In fact, a Palestinian Department was established, by the Arab League, in 1949, to be dissolved in 1959.
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Sacrificing the complex reality of Israel-Arab relations on the altar of simplistic solutions – suggesting that the Palestinian issue is a core cause of Arab policy-making – has failed to advance the cause of peace.
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In order to advance the cause of Israel-Arab peace, one should study the lessons of the Al Aqsa Mosque controversy, which highlight the limited (and negative) role played by the Palestinian issue in Arab policy-making and the pursuit of peace.
PALESTINIANS THREATEN TRUMP OVER US EMBASSY MOVE!
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Israel Puts World On Notice – Military Action If Iran Moves Into Syria
BY YAAKOV LAPPIN/JNS.ORG
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Iran is expanding into Syria, converting the country into a military and weapons base, filling it with heavily armed Shi’a proxy forces, and earmarking it as a launchpad for future attacks on Israel.
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Israel, in turn, has recently put the international community on notice, warning that a failure to stop the Iranian push into Syria will result in Israeli military action.
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In this context, Israeli officials have traveled to the U.S. and Russia in recent weeks, to share information on Iran’s military moves into Syria, and to sound out the alarm over what may come next.
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Yet it remains far from clear that either Moscow or Washington can or will pressure the Iranians to stop. According to one report, Russia has placed its advanced S-400 air defense system near Iranian weapons factories in Syria.
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The factories purportedly produce long-range guided missiles for the Lebanese terror group Hezbollah to use against Israel. Russia has not confirmed the report.
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In August, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu traveled to Sochi, Russia, where he met with President Vladimir Putin at his summer residence for an urgent meeting on Iran’s activities in Syria.
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Iran, which runs the ground war in Syria on behalf of the Bashar al-Assad regime, has become an important regional ally of Russia, which oversees air operations in support of the Iranian-led axis. Together, they have managed to turn the tide in the Syrian war against the Sunni rebel organizations.
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The Assad regime has been regaining increasing amounts of territory, into which Iran and its agents pour in. Islamic State’s collapse is also leaving behind a vacuum that is being filled by Iran.
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Meanwhile, a senior Israeli defense delegation, made up of the head of the Mossad, Yossi Cohen, and the leader of the IDF Military Intelligence Directorate, Maj.-Gen. Herzi Halevi, landed in Washington in mid-August to discuss what Iran is doing in Syria with U.S. National Security Adviser, H. R. McMaster.
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Israeli delegation members noted “a kind of embarrassment and lack of a clear position” among Trump administration officials regarding America’s commitments in the Middle East, particularly in regards to preventing the spread of Iranian influence in Syria, Yedioth Ahronoth reported.
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U.S. Ambassador to Israel David Friedman told The Jerusalem Post that “the Americans fully support the Israeli objectives…at least from a macro perspective, the Americans and Israelis are of the same mind.”
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Yet the newspaper reported that Friedman was “unwilling to discuss…how this objective of keeping Iran out of a post-civil war Syria can be reached.”
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According to Professor Eyal Zisser, an expert on Syria from Tel Aviv University, the U.S. is prepared to hand off Syria to Russia. “As part of this package deal, which will free the Trump Administration from the burden of Syria, the U.S. is willing to accept the Russian willingness to grant Iran a grip on Syria,” he added.
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Zisser said that Russia is aware of Israel’s concerns, and is willing to move Hezbollah and Iran back from the Israeli border by a few kilometers, but that ultimately, Moscow views Iran as a legitimate force.
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Moscow also thinks that Israel has to come to accept Iran as such, so long as the Iranian presence does not turn into a missile attack on Israel.
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“The bottom line is that neither Russia nor the US are accepting Israel’s outcry, and are unwilling to push Iran out of Syria. They even view it as a stabilizing factor, and apparently they do not take Israel’s threats very seriously,” Zisser added.
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Israel’s diplomatic warning campaign is in full swing, but it is reasonable to believe that the real objective is to create legitimacy for future Israeli action, Israel’s former National Security Adviser, Maj.-Gen. Yaakov Amidror, told JNS.org.
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“The Israeli warning regarding an intention to set red lines is important, not because the two powers (the U.S. and Russia) will act, but because when Israel acts, it will have much more legitimacy,” said Amidror.
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Col. (ret.) Reuven Erlich, director of Tel Aviv-based Meir Amit Intelligence and Terrorism Information Center, which has been monitoring events in Syria, said that America’s goal is to dismantle Islamic State’s control in areas of Syria–not to engage in nation-building there or prevent the buildup of Iranian-backed Shi’a forces.
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“The U.S. policy in Syria is to destroy ISIS’s territorial control,” he said, explaining that other issues, like the Syrian regime’s relations with others, are out of the range of American policy or capabilities in Syria.
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“So if we suddenly see Shi’ite militias and Hezbollah in the Syrian Golan Heights, they (the Americans) will not be able to do much,” Erlich said.
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He added, “But the U.S. can activate pressure levers that it has with Russia, which is and will continue to be a strong player in Syria, and which can pressure the Syrian regime. The U.S. is not, however, building a position on the ground that would enable it to come to our assistance if we need it.”
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Russia does have a presence in Syria, and therefore, an ability to influence the Damascus regime and Iran, Erlich argued. Still, he said, “The Russians will not enter into a confrontation with Iran because of us. But if they realize that an Iranian presence in the Golan Heights will have a price, the Russians can be a restraining factor. That too, however, is in doubt.”
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Ultimately, Erlich said, Israel must rely on its own ability to defend itself. Quoting Hillel the Elder, he said, “There is a saying: If I am not for myself, who will be for me?”
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Israeli Defense Minister Avigdor Lieberman Aug. 24 released a statement that was both unusual and littered with clues about the seriousness of the latest developments.
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“The fact that Iran is trying to turn the whole of Syrian territory into a forward outpost against the State of Israel, with military bases, with thousands of Shi’ite mercenaries that are brought in from all over the Middle East into Syria, with an Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) air force base, with an IRGC naval base, the attempt to manufacture precision weaponry in Lebanon–this is a reality that we do not intend to accept,” he said.
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Lieberman said Netanyahu’s meeting in Sochi was part of an attempt to use every available diplomatic avenue, hinting heavily that military action would follow if diplomacy failed.
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“All that we are trying to do right now is to use all of these avenues to solve the problem,” he said.
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In a clearly veiled warning, Lieberman added, “I hope that we can solve it through the diplomatic channels, through the international community, with vigorous activity in every direction. I hope we will not have to think otherwise.”
The strategic case for Kurdistan
by Caroline Glick
If the leaders of Iraqi Kurdistan aren’t intimidated into standing down, on September 25, the people of Iraqi Kurdistan will go to the polls to vote on a referendum for independence.
The Kurds have been hoping to hold the referendum since 2013.
Whereas Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu restated his support for Kurdish independence earlier this month in a meeting with a delegation of visiting Republican congressmen, the Trump administration has urged Kurdish President Masoud Barzani and his colleagues to postpone the referendum indefinitely.
US Defense Secretary James Mattis, who visited with Barzani in the Kurdish capital of Erbil two weeks ago, said that the referendum would harm the campaign against Islamic State.
In his words, “Our point right now is to stay focused like a laser beam on the defeat of ISIS and to let nothing distract us.”
Another line of argument against the Kurdish referendum was advanced several weeks ago by The New York Times editorial board. The Times argued the Kurds aren’t ready for independence. Their government suffers from corruption, their economy is weak, their democratic institutions are weak and their human rights record is far from perfect.
While the Times’ claims have truth to them, the relevant question is compared to what?
Compared to their neighbors, not to mention to the Times’ favored group the Palestinians, the Kurds, who have been self-governing since 1991, are paragons of good governance. Not only have they given refuge to tens of thousands of Iraqis fleeing ISIS. Iraqi Kurdistan has been an island of relative peace in a war-torn country since the US-led invasion in 2003.
Its Peshmerga forces have not only secured Kurdistan. They have been the most competent force fighting ISIS since its territorial conquests in 2014.
The same is the case of the Kurdish YPG militia in Syrian Kurdistan.
As for Mattis’s argument that the referendum, and any subsequent moves to secede from Iraq, would harm the campaign against ISIS, the first question is whether he is right.
If Mattis is concerned that the referendum will diminish Iranian and Turkish support for the campaign, then his concern is difficult to defend.
Turkey has never been a significant player in the anti-ISIS campaign. Indeed, until recently, Turkey served as ISIS’s logistical base.
As for Iran, this week Iranian-controlled Hezbollah and Lebanese military forces struck a deal to permit ISIS fighters they defeated along the Lebanese-Syrian border to safely transit Syria to ISIS-held areas along the Syrian border with Iraq. In other words, far from cooperating with the US and its allies against ISIS, Iran and its underlings are fighting a separate war to take ISIS out of their areas of influence while enabling ISIS to fight the US and its allies in other areas.
This then brings us to the real question that the US should be asking itself in relation to the Kurdish referendum. That question is whether an independent Kurdistan would advance or harm US strategic interests in the region.
Since the US and Russia concluded their cease-fire deal for Syria on July 7, Netanyahu has used every opportunity to warn that the cease-fire is a disaster.
In the interest of keeping Mattis’s “laser focus” on fighting ISIS, the US surrendered its far greater strategic interest of preventing Iran and its proxies from taking over the areas that ISIS controlled – such as the Syrian-Lebanese border and the tri-border area between Iraq, Syria and Jordan. As Netanyahu warns at every opportunity, Iran and its proxies are moving into all the areas being liberated from ISIS.
And Iran isn’t the only concern from either an Israeli or an American perspective. Turkey is also a looming threat, which will only grow if it isn’t contained.
Turkey’s rapidly accelerating anti-American trajectory is now unmistakable.
Last week during Mattis’s visit to Ankara, Turkish- supported militias in northern Syria opened fire on US forces. Not only did Turkey fail to apologize, Turkey condemned the US for retaliating against the attackers.
Moreover, last week, Turkish authorities announced they are charging US pastor Andrew Brunson with espionage, membership in a terrorist organization and attempting to destroy Turkey’s constitutional order and overthrow its parliament.
Brunson was arrested last October.
Whereas until last year’s failed military coup against the regime of President Recep Erdogan, Turkey demonstrated a firm interest in remaining a member of NATO and a strategic ally of the US, since the failed coup, Turkey has signaled that at best, it is considering its options. US generals say that since the failed coup, they have almost no one to talk to in the Turkish military. Their interlocutors are either under arrest or too afraid to speak to them.
The regime and its supporters express both neo-Ottoman and neo-colonial aspirations, both of which place Turkey on a collision course with the US.
For instance, Melih Ecertas, the head of Erdogan AKP Party’s youth wing proclaimed that Erdogan is not merely the president of Turkey. He is “President of all the world’s Muslims.”
So, too, Muslim Brotherhood leader Sheikh Yusuf Qaradawi called Erdogan “the hope of all Muslims and of Islam.”
Qaradawi, who lives in Qatar and is Qatar’s Al Jazeera satellite channel’s superstar preacher, has good reason to love Erdogan.
In June, Erdogan decided to make a strategic move to protect the pro-Muslim Brotherhood and pro-Iranian Qatari regime from its angry neighbors, led by Saudi Arabia. Turkey’s deployment of forces to Doha stalled the Saudi-led campaign against the Qatari regime.
If the regime survives, and if world oil prices continue to drop and so weaken Saudi economic power, Turkey’s decision to deploy its forces to Qatar could be the first step toward realizing its neo-Ottoman ambitions.
As for neo-imperialism, last October Foreign Policy reported that Turkish television now uses a map from 1918 to define Turkey’s current borders. From 1918 through 1920, Turkish territory included large portions of Iraq, among them Kurdistan and Mosul, as well as large swaths of Syria, including Aleppo.
Foreign Policy reported that use of the map indicates that as the post-World War I map of the Middle East becomes obsolete, Erdogan sees an opportunity to expand Turkish territory.
Then there are Erdogan’s moves to build strategic ties with Russia and Iran.
Last November the NATO member announced it is negotiating the purchase of an S-400 air defense system from Russia.
As for Iran, last week Maj.-Gen, Mohammad Hossein Baghari, Iran’s chief of General Staff, paid the first official visit by an Iranian army chief to Turkey since the 1979 revolution. Baghari met not only by his Turkish counterpart, Gen. Hulusi Akar, but with Erdogan as well.
Erdogan said after the meeting that he and Baghari discussed possible joint military action against the Kurds in northern Iraq, Syria and Iran.
In his words, “Joint action against terrorist groups that have become a threat is always on the agenda.
“This issue has been discussed between the two military chiefs, and I discussed more broadly how this should be carried out.”
Baghari was more explicit. He effectively announced that Iran and Turkey will respond with force to the Kurdish referendum.
“Both sides stressed that if the [Kurdish] referendum would be held, it will be the basis for the start of a series of tensions and conflicts inside Iraq, the consequences of which will affect neighboring countries.”
Baghari continued, “Holding the referendum will get Iraq, but also Iran and Turkey involved and that’s why the authorities of the two countries emphasize that it is not possible and should not be done.”
This then brings us back to Israel and the US and why Netanyahu is right to support Kurdish independence and the Trump administration is wrong to oppose it.
So long as there is no significant change in the nature of the Iranian and Turkish regimes, their empowerment will come at the expense of the US, Israel and the Arab Sunni states.
The Kurds, with their powerful and experienced military forces in Iraq and Syria alike, constitute a significant check on both Iranian and Turkish power.
Several commentators argue that the Turks will respond to the Kurdish referendum by waging a war of annihilation against the Kurds in Iraq and beyond. Iran, they warn, will assist in Turkish efforts.
As far as Iran is concerned, in the near future, its central effort will remain in Syria. As for Turkey, whereas Erdogan and his followers may wish to undertake such a campaign, today it hard to imagine them succeeding.
A year after the failed coup, the Turkish military is astounding observers with its incompetent performance in Syria. Despite the fact that Turkish forces are fighting in Syria in areas adjacent to their border, they are unable to competently project their force.
Turkey’s underperformance in Syria makes clear that the Turkish armed forces, which Erdogan gutted in his purges of the officer and NCO corps in the wake of the failed coup, have not rebuilt their strength.
According to an analysis by Al-Monitor published last September, the first four rounds of purges in the immediate aftermath of the failed coup reduced the number of general officers by nearly 40%. The ratio of pilots to aircraft in the Turkish Air Force was reduced from more than three pilots per plane to less than one pilot per plane.
While Al-Monitor assessed last year that it would take up to two years for the Turkish Air Force to rebuild its pilot corps, last week it appeared that two years was a gross underestimation of the time required.
Last week the US rejected a Turkish request to have Pakistani pilots fly Turkish F-16s. The request owed to the critical shortage of pilots in the Turkish Air Force.
And Erdogan continues to purge his generals. In early August he sacked the commanders of Turkish land forces and the Turkish Navy.
Given the current state of Turkish forces on the one hand, and the battlefield competence of Kurdish forces on the other, it is clear that the balance of the two forces has never been better for the Kurds.
If Kurdistan becomes independent with US and Israeli backing and survives, the implications for the longevity of the Erdogan regime, given the rapidly expanding size of the Kurdish minority in Turkey, are significant.
Likewise for Iran, an independent Kurdistan in Iraq will serve to contain Iranian power in Syria and potentially destabilize the Iranian regime at home.
In summary then, opponents of Kurdish independence are correct. An independent Kurdistan will destabilize the region. But contrary to their claims, this is a good thing. For the first time since 2009, destabilization will benefit the US and Israel and weaken Iran and Turkey.
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